Darkness Under The Bed
by Tiruneko
Summary: He heard his mother scream around one in the morning and his father shout at ten after. The song began at two am, but he hasn't heard his parents voices since. He wants his mommy. He wants her bad. He doesn't think she's coming. He's probably right. [Warnings: eventual yaoi, Oliver/Len, language, gore, rating subject to change]
1. Chapter 1

**I'll be honest, I forgot about this story for a while. I redid some of it. It's now an eventual Oliver/Len story. Don't like yaoi or this pairing, sorry folks, get off my pony cos he only goes one way. I checked this a while ago and was like, "How does it have 100+ views?" and decided to work on it a little more. Reviews are always appreciated, thanks for sticking with me on this, I promise it's gonna be good,  
><strong>

**~_Tiruneko ;3_**

* * *

><p><span>One<span>

"_Canary, canary, sing me a song…_" The footsteps echo throughout the big grand house. The little boy shivers even though it's June. He pulls the grey comforter up over his head, clenching his eyes closed to ward off the tears. The voice carries and floats down the halls that have now become eerily empty. It's a nice little song. The boy thinks he would have liked it if not for the circumstances. "_Canary, canary, please sing a long…"_

He tries not to cry. He tries very, very hard, but it's not really working. He heard his mother scream around one in the morning and his father shout at ten after. The song began at two am, but he hasn't heard their voices since. The voice that sings is something deep and graining, it's haunting and makes him want to shiver. The air smells metallic and something red started oozing under his door a while ago so he crawled under the blankets because it felt safer there.

Then the doors started to fly open with a loud bang, as if someone was bashing them open. "_Canary, canary, fly by my head…"_ The little boy cringes, balling up his small hands by his face and curling into himself. He wants his mother. The bathroom door down the hall crashes open as if it was ripped off the hinges. Suddenly panicked, the little blonde boy launches himself off of the bed and crawls under it. He bites his fist to keep from whimpering in fear.

He shivers again as the voice begins to hum an upbeat yet somehow melancholy tune. Another door crashes open. It is the one next to his. His mommy always leaves the door cracked, just in case the big and shadowy room scares him at night. It always does. He was doing well tonight until mommy's voice woke him up.

His door moves open quietly. Two bare feet appear in the doorway, splattered with red. The boy shudders but keeps quiet. Then the voice starts again. It's loud now and clear. The feet he sees belong to the owner of the song.

"_Canary, canary, under the bed… Won't you sing me a song_?"

The feet bend down turning into a figure. A head peeks under his bed and the boy yelps in surprise. Two red eyes brighten with a smile and a cold hand grabs his ankle.

"Won't you please sing me a song?"

Two hands grip his ankle and pull him out from under the bed. The boy cries out, kicking with all of his strength into the leg of the one pulling him. He scrambles desperately back under the bed as the figure crashes to the ground, cursing him wildly.

"He kicked me! Little shit! Mrs. Kasane! Mrs. Kasane! Oliver won't come out from under the bed! And he attacked me!"

"Coming!" A much kinder and female voice calls distantly. The boys chatter as Oliver grips the springs of the bed. He holds still and silent. There are distant footsteps that grow and then the door opens. "Alright, alright, out with all of you," the woman's voice says, slightly annoyed.

"He kicked me, Mrs. Kasane! It'll probably bruise!" One of the boys complains.

"Oh hush, now get to school, all of you!" She chides, watching bemused as the boys slowly sulk from the room. Oliver watches their feet silently. He stares at Mrs. Kasane's flats. She stands quietly after they've gone. "Oliver?" She tries. No answer. "Come out now, alright?" There's a pause. She sits down on the bed and the mattress above him bends a little. "I'll talk to them later. I thought I told them..." she sighs. "I'm sorry, Oliver. It's just been hard after... but... you know that," she trails off sadly, quietly.

Teto Kasane is a very nice woman. Four years ago her and her husband began taking in foster boys out of the kindness of their hearts. The two had always wanted children but were unable to have them. Mr. Kasane was a fantastic man. He would take the young boys for ice creams on lazy Saturday afternoons and play baseball with the older ones. He'd take the more reclusive of the boys to the library and let them borrow his bikes so they could go on their own. He was always happy and always kind. He died about a year ago in a freak car accident. He had been walking home with Oliver from the post office. "Always look both ways, Oliver," he had said, "because you never know what life's gonna' throw at you," and then he was hit by a black van and died when his head went crashing through the windshield.

He felt bad about that one. Oliver liked Mr. Kasane.

Teto is still grieving. She loved him very much. "So, what do you say I take you into school late today and you help me make pancakes?" Help her make pancakes? Who's she kidding? Everyone knows the widow Kasane cannot cook, that was her husband's job. Now it's Oliver's. When Teto cooks lunches for the boys they don't eat them. Oliver won't tell her that though. No point in hurting her feelings. Oliver doesn't say anything. "No? How about I don't take you in at all then and we just rustle up some old movies and have a _you _day. How's that sound?" He can hear the smile in her voice.

_Bad, _he wants to say. _It sounds very bad, _but he doesn't.

Oliver isn't unreasonable, and he really does want to please her. So he compromises and with shaky legs crawls out from under the bed. Teto smiles at his pale face. He has deep purple bags under his eyes from insomnia and unruly blonde hair he's always tugging at when he's nervous. One of his eyes is entirely hidden by a permanent white bandage and the other is a strange amber color.

He's still in his pajamas.

"Great. Good," Teto says more to herself than him. "Get dressed and I'll see you downstairs?" Oliver shrugs. "Good, good." Teto hurries out of the room. Oliver stands on the cold linoleum floor and yawns. Adrenaline still courses through his body. Under the bed is the only place he feels safe.

There are five other beds in the room, but the one on the right end is his. The top is a mess of sheets, blankets, comforters and many, many pillows. Atop it are books and notebooks and markers and pens and clothes while all the other beds are immaculately made. Teto lets him do mostly whatever he wants. It's good that way. There are less obstacles that way.

Oliver digs through the pile of clothes on his bed before pulling out a relatively clean pear of jeans and a brown hoodie. He doesn't want to change out of his blue satin pajama top, it's comfortable. He takes the small comforts he can get. Oliver tugs on the jeans and pulls the hoodie on, zipping it all the way up so that Mrs. Kasane doesn't see that he didn't really get dressed. Oliver is incredibly short. He's fifteen, going on sixteen, but his stature is that of a thirteen year old boy. He used to hate his height but now there are other things to worry about besides that. There are other, more pressing physical ailments rather than his height, like the fact that he doesn't have a right eye.

Putting on a pair of thin grey socks with blackened bottoms from overuse, he trudges warily down the stairs. At the bottom, Teto is standing in the kitchen, frowning. Oliver gives her a look. "We don't have eggs," she says. "We don't have eggs to make pancakes. I don't think we have enough flower either."

Oliver shrugs. Teto stares at him pitifully. "Oh, no, I don't want you to have to go get it all-" Oliver shrugs again. "Are you sure?" He walks over to the kitchen counter and leans across it, pressing his forehead against the cool granite surface and slouching across it. He's tired. He's always tired. "Alright," Teto relents. "I'll go get some money."She comes back a few minutes later with a pink change purse full of bills and coins and a pair of Oliver's white sneakers. In her other hand is a house key because Oliver is always forgetting his.

As he laces up his shoes she frantically warns him of things. "Don't talk to strangers, don't run off, be back soon and for the love of God-"

"Look both ways before I cross the street," he finishes for her.

"Yes," Teto sighs. "Look both ways before you cross the street." There's a brief flash of grief that crosses her features before she hurries him out of the house.

The air is chilly for October, Oliver notes as he fixes white headphones over his ears. He doesn't play music. He never plays music. He just listens to his thoughts and blocks out the world. The grocery store isn't too far away, it's a small town so everything is old and clumped together.

Everyone knows everyone except for him because Oliver rarely goes out anywhere. He only goes when Teto asks him too and she only asks when she thinks it'll be good for him. They've both had trauma and she understands him well enough. No one understands, but she tries. It's nice, so he appeases her so the niceness on her part won't end. People aren't nice unless they get something out of it. If all she wants is the companionship of the boy who watched her husband die, and his cooking skills, then fine. He can appease her.

Oliver is so completely wrapped up in his thoughts that he doesn't notice when another boy crosses the street. He doesn't notice when said boy crashes into him. Spilling back over the sidewalk, Oliver scrapes his elbows over the jagged cement. With a wince he collects his headphones and looks up at the person that crashed into him.

A boy about his age (but slightly taller) with unusually long and almost gold hair tucked into a tiny pony tail is standing over him. He's wearing a maroon colored jacket and black jeans. "Oh, wow, sorry," the boy apologizes quickly. "I thought you were going to turn but I guess not." He extends a hand. The boy's eyes are the sharpest color of blue Oliver has ever seen. They're like ice with streaks of light grey swirled in. It's... fascinating, almost artificial looking. Oliver doesn't take his hand and gets to his feet. "Your elbows okay?"

Oliver rolls up his sleeve to look. He shrugs. They're scraped but only the left one is bleeding.

"Sorry," The boy winces at the sight. "Do you want me to pick you up a thing of bandages and a little disinfectant? It's the least I can do and there's a drug store right over there..."

"'S fine," Oliver says, picking up his now broken headphones. He picks at the shattered plastic.

"Oh man I broke those, didn't I?" The boy says, dragging a hand through their golden hair. "At least let me buy you new headphones," he says. Oliver shrugs because he has a feeling that the boy isn't going to drop this and Oliver doesn't want to be stuck talking to some stranger for longer than absolutely necessary. "Cool," the boy smiles. "I'm Len."

"Oliver," he says.

The two start walking towards the drug store. Oliver's newfound company is humming something under his breath to fill the awkward silence. Oliver himself is not one for speaking but clearly this 'Len' character is. The tune sounds vaguely familiar.

"What are you humming?" He asks in a completely pitiful attempt to be polite. It comes out sounding snappy and not really interested at all.

"Oh, just some old nursery rhyme. I kinda' like it though."

"Which one is it?"

"You probably won't know it but it goes like this, _Canary, canary, sing me a song," _before the boy can half-heartedly 'sing' another word, something deep, deep down in Oliver's brain has already snapped like a taught wire. And then, turning on a heel, he runs without looking, panic flooding his blood like a viscous fluid. He runs straight into the road.

_"Always look both ways, Oliver," _echoes in his head but is quickly drowned out by the blaring of a car horn as it comes speeding into his side. Then there's simply nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Short and sweet, there will be more soon if I get my way- Thanks to the original reviewers: iloveyugiohGX93, Akane L.M.S, Guest, and Lolly1o1 **

_**~Tiruneko ;3**_

* * *

><p><span>Two<span>

When Oliver first begins the steady descent back into consciousness one of the first things he registers is the feeling that he's going to have just a _terrible _migraine when he wakes up. The next thing he registers is how _cold _he is and the final thing his sleep impaired brain picks up on before kicking back into high-gear and forming coherent thoughts again is the fact that he's not dead. What a way to start out the day, huh?

He cracks his eye open and peers around himself cautiously. He's lying on one of those couches that has a mattress that folds out of it underneath a dark grey comforter that's somehow providing him no warmth whatsoever. The room doesn't appear to have any windows and the only door is open and, from the sounds of things, behind him. Oliver's breath staggers when he shifts his eyes around to take in more of the foreign surroundings and is met with a dull ache from his 'bad' eye. Forgetting being quiet and inconspicuous entirely, both hands dart up frantically to cover the eye and he realizes in absolute horror that his eye patch is gone.

He lets out a quiet noise that sounds pathetically similar to a whine. That's when he is met with a slight chuckle from the boy in the street, the one that broke his awesome headphones, Len. The one who knew that… that… that _song. _

Len's leaning against the wall directly behind Oliver and when he realizes that the boy is not going to turn over to look at him, he moves around to the side Oliver is facing and bends down to the height of the bed.

"Hola," Len says with that stupid boyish yet completely _evil _teenage grin of his. Oliver was on the fence before, treating Len like he does every person that attempts to talk to him, with annoyance and irritation, but now he knows without a doubt he _hates _this guy. "Whassup?" he says casually, as if they had simply run into each other at the mall except they don't know each other and Oliver would never go to a mall of all places. He glares at the boy full force. "How's the rib cage there, Bambi? Gonna' go running into the street again anytime soon? If you are I'd like a warning this time, you know, so I can prepare a little before having to jump into traffic and drag you away from the minivan of death?" Len pats his upper thigh under the blanket when he stands and Oliver cringes at the contact.

A thick moment of silence passes between them, Len standing in the same spot, looking off in the distance and just somewhere that isn't at Oliver, which he's grateful for.

"It's really cold in here," Oliver mumbles weakly, sounding completely exhausted.

"Huh," Len says and shrugs noncommittally.

Oliver stares at Len's knee caps. "Thank you for… not letting me get run over."

"Oh. No problem, man. What was that about anyways? Never seen anyone go completely ape shit so fast in my life and I've seen a lot of off the wall stuff…" Len muses to himself, eyes finally wandering back down to Oliver who flinches a little under the boy's imposing gaze. The teenage boy simply radiates a vibrant and all-consuming presence. A life-of-the-party, chick-magnet, everybody's-best-friend kinda' vibe. It makes Oliver dizzy.

He swallows thickly. "You… the song you were humming…" The boy's kneecaps are rather interesting, Oliver notes. The denim of his jeans is fraying a little just above the left knee in a pattern that reminds him of the ugly rug Teto used to have in her room.

Neither of the two breathe for a long time and the sound of nothingness is vast and heavy. "You're here to kill me, aren't you?" Oliver says in a voice barely a whisper.

Within a fraction of a second Len is on top of him, ripping Oliver out of the bed, throwing him against the opposite wall like he's nothing but a rag doll and pinning him with one hand by the throat. Oliver's hand does not fall from his 'bad' eye and his face remains expressionless and tired. Something else maybe a little like pain rips through his eye in such a ferocious torrent of expression it's gone within a moment and leaves his eye looking even less living than before.

"Am I?" Len responds coldly.

Oliver inhales, exhales. Len isn't squeezing too hard on him at all, just enough to trap him there, let him know he can't move.

"I don't know," he says slowly.

"Why would you assume I would?"

Inhale… exhale. "Because the last time I heard that song I was watching some psycho with red eyes dig around like an animal in my mother's open chest cavity and play with her entrails."

Len studies him with a deeply furrowed brow before his hand slowly falls away.

"Go back to bed, huh? Get some rest," Len advises without looking at Oliver again as he heads to the door. "Your eyepatch is on the floor by the side of the bed." And he closes the door behind him.

Oliver stands still for a moment, listening to the hum of an air conditioner above his head.

He turns on his heel and slams his fist into the wall and wills himself not to vomit.


End file.
